Valerie Putman: Yet another gaming vacation
I’m writing this from the buisness center of a hotel lobby in Atlanta, GA where I am playing games at the Oasis of Fun gaming invitational. This gaming vacation started for me on Monday when Rick Thornquist arrived just in time to go to game night at a local pub. We then drove on Tuesday to stay with friends and join their weekly game night. Wednesday we arrived at Oasis of Fun where we will game until Sunday. We will again stop to visit several more friends on the way back to Columbus, OH arriving just in time for Origins next week. While I hope to get many more games in this weekend, I thought I’d take a minute during a brief lull in the gaming to share some thoughts on the new ones I’ve played so far.
Chinese Wall I tried this Reiner Knizia card game as a two player game and it was a pleasant filler. Nothing new or exciting, but I rarely think fillers are.
nur Peanuts This game is from 2001, so not a new game for you, perhaps, but it was new to me. I had mentioned that I liked press your luck games and so this was suggested to me. Even though I went bankrupt (ie I pressed my luck too far), I had a great time with this. I’d be just as happy to play it as Can’t Stop or Liar’s Dice.
Pecking Order A two player card game by Richard Garfield from Immortal Eyes that I expected to dislike. Players take turns secretly playing birds (numbered 1 - 12) on perches worth 1 - 10 points. If you play on the same value perch that your opponent has played on, your opponent must reveal the value played. If your “attacker” is higher, you win the perch and may leave the value of your card hidden. (Honesty is necessary, of course.) If the attacker loses, the defender’s card remains face up. I was worried that it would have a “Princess Bride” or Rock, Paper, Scissors feel to it, but because you could reattack a purch or use a low number simply to force your opponent to reveal the value of their bird, players could make real and meaningful decisions. This still isn’t my favorite kind of game, but I’d suggest it to players looking for a change of pace from Lost Cities or Battle Line.
Marry, Date, or Dump Am I kidding? I wish. Did I suggest this game? Actually, yes. I get teased for disliking party games...like I don’t know how to have fun or something. So I grabbed the dumbest looking party game I could find and suggested it, expecting the rest of the group to balk. But it back fired. We played one round of this silly game and learned that I would rather marry Olivia Newton John, date Madonna, and dump Tina Turner and that my friend Kevin knows me soooo well because he predicted it exactly. Even though it was almost midnight when the game ended, I gladly jumped into a game of Roads & Boats when we finished in order to cleanse myself of the party game experience.
Conquest of Pangea This area management game looked promising (especially since I didn’t read the rules--apparently they are difficult to get through). But the initial set up concerned me because it seemed too easy to have very unbalanced starting positions. The randomness continued as event cards devastated some players and benefitted others. I would be willing to play this again, but I don’t think I’ll rush out to buy it. There will also need to be an FAQ to clear up some confusing rules and some cards that just don’t make sense.
The Great Space Race I like games that tap spatial relations skills like Techno Witches and Wings of War (without the shooting, preferably). This race game had interesting movement cards that you played out in advance in a Robo Rally-esque way that was fun enough. Of course, when I completely exploded and was eliminated from the game as a result of an unfortunate series of encounters with Space Leeches, Space Goats, and Greg Schloesser, I wasn’t really too dissapointed.
Of course the best part of the week has been time spent with friends. Of the games I’ve played, the midnight Roads & Boats, a tough Power Grid showdown, two new Age of Steam maps, two more plays of Blue Moon City, and a hard earned die Macher win have been the shining stars.
Back to the games,
Valerie Putman
Posted by Valerie Putman on Jun 25, 2006 at 03:00 AM in Columnists, Valerie Putman / 1002
Comments:
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Once again, color me jealous! Nur Peanuts is always silly fun and even though it’s a dicefest, the decisions are meaningful. To me, the best part of the game is the one player (and there’s always one) who INSISTS on pushing his luck (and thereby head into the death spiral) despite all logic. Pecking Order doesn’t sound that enthralling, but it sounds like there’s enough there to give it a shot. Your intial take on Pangea is disappointing. It does sound like we may have to wait a bit to make sure the correct rules are being used, so I haven’t given up hope, but this may not be the nice gamer’s game I thought it might be. Ah well. I’m not sure I could survive an encounter with Space Leeches, Space Goats, AND Greg Schloesser! Two out of three, maybe, but all three would probably spell my doom! Posted by Larry Levy on Jun 25, 2006 at 10:17 AM | #
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I played Pangea as the official rules-reader and managed to find three rules over the course of the game I wasn’t playing correctly, so the rules could be a bit more helpful. There were even player-aid cards that I never referred to, as they didn’t have any information that I had a question about. A question or two arose that I made judgement calls about, as they weren’t specifically addressed in the rules. (Very minor things, though.) I, too, was worried about the imbalance at the start (one player got hammered by both of the zero-placement cards so started 2 areas behind everyone else) and the random retreating of the continents. I like the tension of the random continent retreating, but the raft cards/abilities are far, far too rare (in our game at least - one player started with 4 lakes) to compensate or plan for inopportune continental drifting… Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Jun 25, 2006 at 03:08 PM | #
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